


Too Late

by selkieskin



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, Bonding, Character Death, Death from Old Age, Fear of Death, Fear of Old Age, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Long Lost Friends, M/M, Memories, Old Age, Requited Love, Terminal Illnesses, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 18:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1992471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selkieskin/pseuds/selkieskin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if he never told him until it was too late? Set in a world (TOS-based) where they drifted apart in later years and the Nexus never happened. Kirk is in a hospital bed, dying of old age and other illnesses, and Spock comes to him. </p><p>Warning: possibly a bit gruesome in parts because that's what happens when you're that ill. I've tried to be as sensitive yet as realistic as possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Late

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted from my KSArchive account, under the username Bluebell.

“It's this way, sir.”

 

The hospital was awash with blinking lights, beeping machines monitoring the people laid out in rows in identical beds whose times were near. The smell was like antiseptic had been applied over the cloying smell of rotting, of people rotting alive in their own flesh. It was fungal, it was acrid. It was immensely hard for Spock to exist in such an environment. His shields weren't quite enough to block out the aura of fear, of pain and nausea that filled these halls. He could hear acutely the laboured breathing, the coughing and the voices. But there was no choice. He had to come. It wasn't about him. His footsteps seemed unnaturally loud against the hard plastic floor. The place was cold and sad and sterile in a way that made him feel cold to the bone. The dark-haired nurse leading him through was young, seeming barely more than a child to the Vulcan as a stream of quick chatter came from her about the specifics of the condition despite Spock's continuing lack of response. It was serious. A cancer of the pancreas that had spread and was taking over him. Few motor responses remaining. Jim.

 

“It's this room,” the nurse explained, stopping abruptly, frowning at Spock. “Shall I leave you two alone?”

 

JAMES KIRK was emblazoned on the door's nameplate. It was a private room, thanks to his celebrity status even now in his twilight years. He stared dumbly at that name.

 

“Sir?”

 

Spock merely nodded, a part of him wishing she would open the door for him, though he knew that was childish. Cowardly. How he feared to see what lay behind it. He had faced many dangers in his life yet this was the one that terrified him most. What would he find?

 

“OK then. The Nurse Call button is by his bed if you need us.” She strode off to attend to other patients, the adult professionalism seeming almost wrong on her youthful form.

 

Spock turned to the door, a lump in his throat already. His fists clenched and unclenched by his sides. Deep breaths to calm himself down. Should he just walk straight in like he used to when they knew each other? Eventually propriety made him knock, once, twice, three times. It was met with silence for several long, agonising seconds. Then he heard a shifting of sheets within the room, accompanied by a broken voice, the voice of an old man, just too quiet for human ears to pick up.

 

“Come in?”

 

Spock gathered his courage and pushed open the door.

 

The sight before him made his breath catch in his throat. It was hard to believe that was Jim on that bed. He would hardly have believed it if not for the charts that were clearly labelled 'James Tiberius Kirk' hung on the end. Kirk was thinner than Spock ever expected to have seen him, skeletal, a stark contrast to his usual tendency towards fat, especially in the later years. Nothing like the man Spock had seen on holovids these past years. He looked so small in his bed, alone in this room, monitors surrounding him. He was grey-pale, drained, wrinkled. The smell coming off him was fetid. But then... the eyes that looked up past the sunken eye sockets to see him, those hazel eyes, they were the same. They were clouded over with pain and drugs, but they turned from shock, to disbelief, to stunned adoration in a matter of seconds. Their sight made Spock's heart jolt with a long-lost recognition.

 

“Spock!?” he croaked.

 

“Oh...” Spock breathed.

 

“Spock, it is you! You came!” Kirk moved as if he was trying to sit up, but collapsed back onto the bed, exhausted.

 

Spock made his way to the chair beside the bed, sitting down and hoping that his return wave of affection and concern was communicated through his eyes.

 

“How could I not?” he replied softly.

 

Then they lapsed into silence together. They were content to just stare, though neither was entirely sure of what to say. Kirk broke the silence first.

 

“You know, I always hated rank privileges, but here I am buying my own privacy. What does that make me?”

 

Spock turned to him with a half-smile, knowing his friend's distaste for special treatment, but glad nevertheless that there was this privacy.

 

“Human,” he responded. Kirk grinned.

 

“'Vulcans do not indulge in hypocrisy'”, he mimicked in Spock's usual tone.

 

“Though I have grown to know many who do,” Spock replied, suddenly serious. “Apart from the obvious, how are you feeling?”

 

“Me? Wonderful. Just fine and dandy. The nurses here are certainly a lot more gentle than Bones used to be anyway. I used to come down with bigger bruises than this after some of his hypos in the old days.”

 

“Indeed. I was never fond of submitting myself to his attentions.”

 

“Beads and rattles, didn't you call it? You two were always fighting about everything.” Kirk's smile faded, and he sighed. “I know you didn't see me at the funeral. I saw you in the coverage. I was... busy. Doing what, I can't even remember. But I was busy. I was always busy.”

 

“Your work as a public figure is very important for Starfleet. And I know that your policies and recommendations have saved millions of lives and brokered peace across much of the galaxy. I have seen the effects myself.”

 

“That's no excuse. For weeks... years, I could hear his voice in my head wherever I went, angry at me for working all the time for no good reason. But I couldn't stop. The moment I did, I would start going over things in my head, the things I'd done wrong, the things I hadn't done...” Sudden fear came into his eyes, as if he'd strayed too close to something.

 

“In my experience, you are a far more capable decision maker than most I have met,” Spock supplied. “Do not grieve about what is in the past.”

 

Kirk gave his trademark grin then, an expression that made the man he used to be shine through the ravaged visage.

 

“You're always so good to me, Spock. I don't deserve to have you come to me like this.”

 

“I have said it before. _'I have been, and always will be your friend.'_ That has not altered.”

 

“Spock...” Jim gasped. “I...” He was interrupted by a coughing fit. He rolled onto his side with a sudden effort and gestured to an anxious Spock that he should just sit down, it would pass. It racked his body for a full 3 agonising minutes, Spock tense and wondering whether to ignore his friend's protestations and call the nurse anyway, but when Kirk's face was almost purple with the effort, he finally began to breathe easily again.

 

“I wasted so much time,” he rasped, eyes desperate, hands clutching at the sheets. “I was ashamed to let you see me. I had grown so old, so useless, while you...”

 

“You were never too old or useless in any way.” Spock was sternly sincere.

 

“I know, I know. I see that now. I was too proud, my pride making me refuse to see you all these years... it's only now that I realise it doesn't matter. It never mattered. You would never look down on me because of something like... growing old. Never. You're too good for that, it was me. And now when I really am too old and useless, I realised that all that time was just wasted time.”

 

Kirk then inched his trembling fingers across the sheet and wrapped them round Spock's hand. Spock stiffened in surprise at first. It had been years, decades since anyone had touched him, let alone such an intimate touch. He felt his body fold around that hand, powerless against it. He schooled himself just in time and held himself there, acutely aware of the frail, cold fingers touching his, but controlling his reaction, holding himself in position. It was just like the old times. They would often end up grabbing hands on a mission, by accident or to pull one another out of a dangerous situation. It would always jolt through him like this, but never this powerful. Maybe he had simply forgotten the intensity. Now, of course, Spock's associates were mostly fellow Vulcans or Romulans, both of whom had the greatest of respect for personal space. While he had professed to hating the invasion of space that humans routinely accomplished while on the Enterprise, he found that when deprived of it, he did miss it terribly. It somehow used to assure him that he was real, that he was there, that he mattered to them in a way that words did not ring true enough.

 

“I don't have any more time left.”

 

Their eyes were wide and anxious as they gazed at each other in desperation. Kirk was trying to gather his words desperately, Spock could see it.

 

“I-I... I am going to die, Spock. I never really believed I could, but... I'm going to die.”

 

He spoke as one who had never admitted it to himself before. He closed his eyes as if unable to bear the truth. His voice quietened to a murmur.

 

“I don't think I will last the night.”

 

“You might,” Spock found himself saying although he could sense the untruth of his empty reassurance through the touch. His breathing became laboured. His friend's emotions were affecting him too much through the contact, and alarmed, he reinforced his mental shields not just to protect his friend's privacy, but also for his own preservation against the onslaught. “Have hope.”

 

There was a silence for a time. Again, Kirk broke it. His voice was cracking.

 

“No. I feel... I feel like the outside world hurts me. The light hurts, but the dark has started to hurt in the same way. Everything's too loud, too bright, too much. I'm tired, weary, Spock, every breath is like a fight to stay awake.” Kirk was squeezing Spock's hand hard as he poured his heart out like the words were being beaten out of him. “I'm on borrowed time. I can't concentrate on anything, can't move properly, nothing. I don't want to go, but when I do, I want it to be a relief. From all this. I'm so glad I got to see you, because it means that I can let myself go soon. And yet...” He was gulping in breaths now, throat thick. “I'm so scared, Spock. I'll be alone, and I'm scared.”

 

Spock had no idea how to respond to that, aside from laying his other hand over the top of Kirk's in the same way his friend had done for him all those years ago, after Vejur. Kirk stared at him as he did it. They both remembered that reunion.

 

“...Spock?”

 

“Yes... Jim?”

 

“Spock, I have something I really need to tell you, and I need to tell you now. And I'm not sure that I'll be able to say it if you stop me, so I just need you to sit there and be quiet while I say it, alright? It'll sound stupid. It'll sound so stupid.”

 

“Anything, Jim.”

 

“Anything?”

 

Spock nodded, holding Kirk's gaze. Kirk stared at him fearfully for several moments, before drawing in a shuddering breath and remonstrating himself angrily.

 

“This is stupid. I should just say it. It's not like I've got anything to lose now. I've _got to tell you._ ”

 

Spock squeezed Kirk's hand, trying to tell him _I'm listening. Whatever it is, I'm listening._

 

Kirk eyeballed him then, an echo of the way he used to eyeball people long ago when he was in command and nothing could touch him. Certain death afforded the same immunity now. Whatever would come of this, he would not feel the consequences for very long. He squeezed back, and when he spoke again, his voice was strong.

 

“Spock, I love you. I'm in love with you. I always have been, all this time.”

 

Spock wasn't sure how to keep breathing. The ache inside him that was always there had intensified, uncoiled, transforming itself into need... and loss. Relief battled with anger. Anger battled with pain. Jim loved him. Jim loved him. Could this really be? He mentally scanned the words, looking for any social nuances he might have missed. Had he misunderstood somewhere?

 

“Careful, Spock. I break easily nowadays.”

 

Spock looked in horror down at where he was unconsciously gripping Kirk's ancient hand, too hard. Where his fingers came away bruises had formed already, dents in the old skin. He was horrified.

 

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I-”

 

“Never mind about it, it doesn't matter,” Jim snapped.

 

“I-”

 

“It's this worn-out body's fault, not yours.” He kept looking desperately at the Vulcan, eyes searching. “Spock. I have just one last request.”

 

“Yes,” Spock choked out, voice low.

 

“I've not asked it yet,” he joked, lamely. “You see... Look, I know that I smell bad now. I'm disgusting. I've lost any good looks that I once had and I'm confused a lot of the time nowadays. I don't know if that's drugs or senility. I'm an old man, and you're not. But I want to ask you anyway. I know you don't want to, but I need this, just for myself, before I go.”

 

Kirk gazed at Spock, lips parted, eyes shining.

 

“I want you to kiss me on the mouth, Spock. Just once. That's a lot to ask, but...”

 

Spock was trembling, overcome, looking down at the floor. It took him a while to speak, but when he did, it was hoarse.

 

“How could you say that?”

 

Kirk's eyes widened in horror: “I'm sorry, I went too-”

 

“How could you think that!” he exclaimed, louder. Kirk flinched. Spock buried his head in his hands. Kirk was too shocked to even speak, he just lay there, mouth gaping open and shut like a goldfish, looking at his bereft hand uselessly, unable to say or do anything.

 

“You-” Spock began. “When...” He stopped himself and looked up, eyes filled with water. He shut his eyes tightly against the tears. “Why now?”

 

“...It was the last chance I might get,” Kirk replied softly, hope stubbornly refusing to leave his eyes, though flickering, faltering.

 

Spock stood up suddenly, chair clattering back. Kirk looked away the best he could, ashamed. All at once he felt Spock's long, strong fingers on his face, pulling his gaze back. The Vulcan gulped, and when he spoke again, it was deep and quavering with emotion. Those deep black eyes pulled him in.

 

“From the very first I saw you... I have waited for you to ask that of me.”

 

“Spock...”

 

There were no more words for a long time. Spock lowered himself down, slowly, and when their lips met, it was just as if they had never been apart, as if they weren't on the point of separation, as if it was the most natural progression in the world. Kirk was struggling to lift his arms on his own, so Spock took a hand and guided it up to his face, letting the fingers weakly stroke his skin. Tongue slid against tongue and Spock realised that Kirk must also have had a fungal infection due to the bitter foul taste, but he didn't stop. The kiss got hungrier, more desperate, as much as Kirk could manage in his weak state. Eventually Spock broke it away to lift Kirk to lean into him, cradling the frail body in his strong arms and enduring the buzzing nausea he could feel from his friend as a result of being upright after so long. No more shielding. They just held onto each other, Spock stroking the back of Kirk's neck with his other hand, both breathing heavily into each other.

 

“Oh, Jim... _T'hy'la_ ,” murmured Spock in his deep baritone, catching his breath. The feeling of that vibration shot right through Kirk.

 

“That word... what does it mean? It sounds nice.”

 

Spock considered how to put it in Standard. Friend? Brother? No, not quite. Lover? Not quite that either. The only solution that was becoming apparent to him was one he would have suggested anyway. He kissed Kirk's papery neck again before drawing him away so they could look into each others' eyes.

 

“I would meld with thee.”

 

Kirk's eyes widened, then narrowed in suspicion.

 

“What exactly will this entail?”

 

“You know what I wish.” Spock's gaze was even and unflinching.

 

Kirk stared for a minute in wonderment, then closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side as if fending off a vision.

 

“No, Spock. I can't let you.”

 

“You will.”

 

“You might die too if we do that.”

 

“It would be worth it, for that.”

 

“No!” he exclaimed, angry. “I can't let you waste your life on me!”

 

“And what life would that be without you?” Spock responded, suddenly angry too. “What-” He breathed deeply, and attempted to keep his voice level, and under control. His tone was low and angry.

 

“Jim. I have lived without you for many years. I have been performing my duties as I saw them. I had believed myself fulfilled. And yet...” something caught in his throat and he paused to breathe through it and continue, “before you now I realise with great clarity that I have been living a half-life, an empty life. I cannot go back, not having seen you again. I beg you, do not ask that of me. I could no more survive without my katra than you could without yours.” He shook Kirk. “Let this happen. You must.”

 

“I did survive, remember?” retorted Kirk, struggling to reason with the Vulcan before him. “So you-”

 

“You know how it feels.” He held Kirk to his chest once more. Kirk was tense, but didn't have the energy to keep it up. He slumped into the arms around him.

 

“Yes. So I also know it's possible to survive it. Won't you at least try?”

 

“Why?” was Spock's simple response.

 

“Because... dammit Spock, you've got so much more life ahead of you! Don't let yourself die.”

 

“It is my right to choose.”

 

“You can't. Not for me.”

 

“I am all for you.”

 

“You can live!” Kirk exclaimed.

 

“Jim,” came the return rumble. The feeling vibrated through Kirk, making him shiver. “No. I will not contemplate an existence that is nothing because I feel nothing. I cannot do it. I will not do it. I cannot brook such a thought. I refuse it.”

 

Kirk buried his face in the Vulcan, unsure of what else to say, feeling him trembling, overwrought.

 

“Jim...” came the soft murmur into his sparse hair. “I love you.”

 

Hearing those words undid them both. The simple phrase lingered in the air as each felt something click into place deep inside them, an emptiness neither ever knew was even there. Kirk gulped. “I don't know... how hearing you say it makes me feel like this. But yes. I want you with me. More than anything. It's selfish and I have no right, but I can't-”

 

Spock shushed him, pulling away so they could look into each other's faces. Kirk could feel exhaustion pulling him down, himself slipping away. The hot fingers began to slide to their long-lost positions on his face. It would be so simple to, easy to... no!

 

“You can't!” he jolted. The fingers halted, resting lightly on skin. The Vulcan's face was taught, tense with need, longing, frustration.

 

“Please, let me, Jim,” Spock found himself begging. The dark eyes were searching, needing. Kirk's own hazel eyes could not help but return the look.

 

“...Yes,” Kirk found himself answering. And he felt his consciousness beginning to flow into another.

 

My mind to your mind...

 

It had been so long, so many decades yet it felt like coming home. Their minds fit together like they always had, except that this time they could keep going, letting themselves feel the magnetic attraction and slide naturally into each other, becoming one expanse of mind, closer and more intimate than a kiss, more intimate even than sex... he learnt the meaning of the word t'hy'la as it was cried out a thousand times into their union. Names and adoration reverberated endlessly on top of one another, layers upon layers until it was the maximum they could take and they had to separate in the expanse, but it somehow wasn't painful, because they were joined anyway, linked in a place that couldn't be broken.

 

Spock saw his bondmate before him, rushing golden light, beaming and young again, the same assured and confident captain that he had first fallen so irrevocably in love with. Kirk looked from Spock's similarly shining face and gazed astonished at his own hands, here being smooth and supple and full of strength. He flexed them and then reached up to feel his face. Meanwhile, Spock was looking round at their surroundings. Kirk began to become conscious of the place too. The low hum around them, the small room. Single bed on the other side of the latticed partition. A chess set to his left.

 

“Spock?” Kirk asked, testing out his voice in this place. It was as he remembered it, but the word seemed to echo and bounce through the walls, making them waver and move, bending some dimension of him. It was strange and somehow comforting to see Spock in the blue regulation uniform of their youth again. He was dressed in his own command gold, three braids on his arm to Spock's two.

 

“I did not choose this place, Jim. It happened naturally.” The waves of sound were very strange to navigate, but Kirk was able to keep his shape this time. He turned his attention to the chess set, set up as if they had been halfway through a game and been called away by an alert or the start of shift, forced to leave it for another time. White was winning. He picked up one of the pieces, a black knight, and marvelled at how solid it felt in his hand, the weight of it and the contours.

 

“I've not played in years,” Kirk mused. "I never could find anyone that could match me like you.”

 

“I was winning, I see.”

 

“Although I won overall in our matches here. Speaking of which...” He put the piece down on the board again. “Check.”

 

Kirk looked fondly down at the chess board for a few moments. He let go of the chess piece and looked up at Spock, drawing one step closer.

 

“Why are we here?” he asked suddenly.

 

“I am not sure. This is the place that our minds both created as the place for us to be together. I did not consciously decide this, and nor did you.”

 

Kirk's mouth twitched.

 

“So what you're saying is...” He grinned. “You're saying that this is our ideal fantasy? This?”

 

Spock nodded.

 

“In essence, yes.”

 

Spock never expected Kirk to crack up in laughter. And yet he did. First he snorted. He tried to hold it back, hold it in, but he couldn't, not here, not now. So in the end he just let himself go and just laughed, a wild, hooting laughter that reverberated through the mindscape, making the walls twitch.

 

“T'hy'la, what is it? I fail to see why this situation is funny.”

 

“Oh- Oh, but it is!” he whooped. “I mean, just look at us! Here!”

 

Kirk's feelings were beginning to affect Spock as the meld drew them deeper and deeper in.

 

“We've been here so many times before!”

 

Kirk was still in the throes of laughter. Tears had sprung in his eyes, and were beginning to roll down his cheeks.

 

“We're such fools. Such fools! You see, why couldn't we have done this when we looked like this, when the world was ours and we were young and had all the time we could hope for? What happened? Oh, I'm an idiot!”

 

Spock found himself succumbing to laughter as well. It did seem pretty funny all of a sudden that their younger selves had spent that much time on the wistful glances and nights of longing, like a bad romance holovid. The situation was so vast and so terrible, and yet that made it all the funnier in this place. It was so terrible that it defied words and defied holding in. So they laughed loudly instead, letting it consume and overwhelm them. Both were struggling to stand now.

 

“I mean... how could we not see it?” He was laughing fit to burst now and Spock was completely caught up in the absurdity of their situation. He had never laughed properly before. He had always wanted to, and this seemed as good a time as any. They staggered towards each other and gripped onto each others' arms to stay upright, weak from the hilarity. The surroundings, the cabin, the chess set, the uniforms, all were starting to fade away into light as anything but the other ceased to matter.

 

“Just, just- What... what were we even doing all that time!? Oh man!” shrieked Kirk, tears streaming down his face. “We had it all along!”

 

They clutched onto each other then, so tightly they might have been melting into each other, laughing or crying together like it would break them in two. The light intensified until it engulfed their surroundings, and then...


End file.
